Archive for the ‘Mets Minutia’ Category

I’m enjoying my new gimmick, Mets Minutia. It gives me an excuse to learn more about the Mets and keeps me posting here, which is nice. I need the work, and I value the discipline that comes from making daily posts. It’s good and I’m going to continue it, but I have to make a tweak. A rather large, obvious, face-palm of a tweak.

Right. Mets Walk-Offs And Other Minutiae. Anybody who’s been around the Mets blogosphere for more than a week know that this site absolutely nails it. It’s a must read. Heck, I even link to it on my own site (hence the face-palm).

Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to copy what they’re doing with this gimmick. I don’t think it’s even all that similar, but I want to avoid any confusion. So I announce, with great fanfare, that I will now refer to it as “Flushing Frivolities”.

I think it really captures the spirit of the thing.

Ahem. Seeing as I’m making announcements and renaming things, I might as well address this now: this blog is officially moving up four rows and over one section. I renewed my season ticket plan because the Mets allowed me to move my seats away from the Annoying One. They’re not on the aisle, but they are on the home plate side of the bannister, so no more douchebags blocking our view with Facebook photo ops. And we know the guys sitting next to us, so the situation should be vastly improved. We shall see.

That being said, it seems that the blog name is obsolete now, doesn’t it? I’ve no idea what I’m going to call it and there’s the chance that sheer laziness will result in it never changing. I doubt it will be adequately snarky and catchy, but I’ll give it my best shot.

The Mets home run leader board is topped by Darryl Strawberry (252) and Mike Piazza (220). 32 home runs is about a season’s worth of homers for a better-than-average home run hitter, and that’s about what the leaderboard shows: Straw had 608 more at-bats as a Met than Piazza (although he played in 276 more games). Straw had back-to-back 39 home run seasons in 87/88, Piazza hit 40 and 38 in 99/00, respectively. Straw’s home run/at-bat ratio as a Met was 5.54/1, Piazza’s was 5.58/1.

Hey, I know it’s not my best Minutia. Not by a long shot. But it’s Friday, it’s been a long week, and I’m just trying not to overthink this whole gimmick. So take it for what it’s worth: when it comes to home runs, Strawberry and Piazza were fairly equal as Mets.

As we learned earlier, Mike Piazza grounded into 27 double plays in 1999 (which led the league) and 26 in 2002. Piazza grounded into 229 double plays over his entire career, reaching double digits 13 times (in only 16 seasons!) and recording more than 20 four times. Piazza is in second place on the Mets’ all-time leaderboard for GIDP with 132, trailing Ed Kranepool by only six GIDP despite having 2,056 fewer plate appearences (third place is held by another catcher, Jerry Grote).

That got me thinking: who’s on the Hall of Fame leaderboard for GIDP? Yes, I know Piazza’s not in the Hall of Fame yet. The point of this exercise is to determine whether or not his GIDP totals will stand out when compared to the players already in the Hall. One caveat: GIDP didn’t become an official stat in the NL until 1933 and the AL until 1939. So, I omitted all the Hall of Famers whose careers started before 1939. For the record, that includes Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Hank Greenburg, and many others.

That being said, the results were surprising. Piazza would tie with Ernie Banks and trail 17 Hall of Famers. Here’s the full list:

Willie Mays? Stan Musial? Hank Aaron? Piazza’s not eligible yet but when he is, he won’t have to worry about his GIDP total.

And I think it’s just awesome that Cal Ripken leads this list. I loved watching him early in his career, but couldn’t stand him by the time he finished. So it was nice to see him take the top spot. But that’s just me.

Continuing the fascination with double plays, we find that Fernando Tatis had a streak of three games from June 22-24 during which he grounded into at least one double play. And he wasn’t alone: Wilson (Exxon) Valdez (September 18-20) and Gary Sheffield (August 3-5) also had three game streaks. This marked the first time in 22 years that the franchise had three such streaks in one season. 1987 saw Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, and Kevin McReynolds all record three-game streaks of at least one GIDP.

And in case you’re wondering, the franchise record for most games in a row with at least one GIDP is four, shared by George Foster (1982), Ray Knight (1985), Gary Carter (1987), and Victor (Minny Manny) Diaz (2005). And you thought Victor Diaz didn’t hold any records…

Much was made last season of Fernando Tatis‘ proclivity for grounding into double plays, and rightfully so. Even though he only had 340 at-bats, it felt like he grounded into a double play every other bat. And he did GIDP once every 26.15 at-bats, which is nothing to write home about. But that’s nowhere near the top of the leaderboard. It’s less than half what Mike Piazza produced in his 1999 season (27), and exactly half of the second highest total (26, by Piazza in 02 and Cleon Jones in 70). In fact, Tatis doesn’t even come close to the top ten in that category. So he’s got that going for him, right?